


Small Comfort

by AndromedaRising



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 22:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5181734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndromedaRising/pseuds/AndromedaRising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all is said and done, Michaela decides to throw away the ring. Post 1x14.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> I should be studying for midterms right now, but that's always when inspiration hits the hardest, doesn't it? When you have other things you should be doing. I'm sort of playing fast and loose with with canon facts here, partly because I blitzed through the entire series pretty quickly and and partly because my brain is overstuffed, so I can't quite recall everything in order.

In the dark, after _that_ night, in the pale light of the morning beginning to filter in through her sheer white curtains, Laurel couldn’t sleep. Her bones ached and her eyelids felt as heavy as lead, but her mind was on fire and she couldn’t find refuge even when she closed her eyes. She held Michaela’s ring between her thumb and her forefinger, staring at it.

It fit snugly on her ring finger, but it was just a little bit too big for her. She played with it like it was a toy, slipping it on, and off, and on and off again, the motion becoming almost mechanical in its repetitiveness. Laurel stared at it disinterestedly, knowing she should feel guilty, but somehow… She didn’t.

It was an effort to lift her hand and place the ring on the edge of her nightstand. She curled up on her side and stared at it until her vision swam, watching it as if she would blink and it would be gone. It was the only physical proof, besides the clothes discarded in a pile by the door, that that night had truly happened and that she wasn’t crazy and had imagined it all. Fractured images jumped into her head whenever she closed her eyes, flames dancing and licking at her skin while smoke caught in her lungs. The ring, on the other hand, was solid and cold and _real_ , and she felt safe when she looked at it, like maybe they were going to get away with it, like maybe _she_ was going to get away with it, even if she could not outrun it, because those images would continue to haunt her for ever.

The ring somehow made her feel safe, a strange comfort, and for now it had to be enough.

\--

When they returned next semester, Michaela had a new ring. A knock-off, but in all likelihood an expensive one, designed to be a perfect replica.

She still had no idea where her engagement ring actually was; really, Laurel told herself, _theoretically_ , it could be anywhere in the world right now.

The real thing was still sitting in Laurel’s room, tucked away in her bedside drawer, stashed in a velvet-lined box from a ring her father gifted her with on Christmas.

She felt the ghost of Michaela’s ring like a hot iron band wrapping itself around her finger, searing her skin. She supposed that she did feel guilt after all, but perhaps not for the reasons she should.

\--

Michaela stared, open-mouthed, at the ring that Laurel had set on the table between them like a bargaining chip, then her gaze wandered up to Laurel’s eyes. Something darkened in her eyes, falling closed between them like a shuttered window. Michaela pressed her lips into a flat line, swiped the ring, and stood.

“I’m sorry,” Laurel tried.

“No, you’re not,” Michaela said, and then nothing more, leaving without paying her tab or so much as a good-bye.

And she wasn’t wrong, at least, not entirely. Guilt twisted Laurel’s insides. Because just when Michaela thought she might not need the ring anymore, there it was, gleaming in the low light of the bar, taunting her.

And Laurel had been the one guarding it—not for Michaela’s sake, but for her own. Yes, maybe Laurel had done it to protect them all—not just Wes, but Connor and Michaela, and even Annalise—but she could not deny that it was motivated by self-interest before anything else.

Laurel downed the rest of her drink in one long hungry sip; thinking: she could have gone after Michaela—chased her down, tried to explain.

But she didn’t. Maybe because she knew there would be no point, no sufficient explanation, even if Laurel told her that she was just protecting Michaela from herself.

So she sat at the bar, alone, the salty brine of the olive she plucked out of her martini glass tasting something like regret. Michaela’s drink sat, untouched, only a hand’s breadth from hers. Laurel hesitated before reaching out to pluck it by the stem. Well. If she was going to pay for it she might as well finish it.

As she raised the glass to her lips, the rim still stained with Michaela’s pink lipstick, Laurel realized that she kept trying on Michaela for size, like she was getting a small taste of her.

It didn’t make her feel closer to Michaela, though, only more and more distant, like she had lifted the anchor that moored them together and she was adrift, floating away on dark waves.

\--

Michaela subjected Laurel to the silent treatment for a time, then she tortured her, dangling forgiveness over her head but always keeping it just out of reach. She was the type of person to say jump and when you jumped, she laughed it your face.

It was up to Laurel to make the first move.  _Moves,_ plural, because making it up to Michaela was seemingly going to be a Herculean effort.

One day, out of the blue, Michaela she texted Laurel. Michaela  _never_ texted first, even under normal circumstances, so when Laurel saw the notification she frowned and opened the message immediately.

 _I can’t find the ring…_

Laurel’s breath hitched, and she let out a breath that was a cross between a laugh and a scoff, her breath a cloud of white in the crisp winter air. Her steps slowed to a stop as she stared at her phone, trying to figure out what to say in response.

_you’re kidding_

Michaela didn’t answer.

After two minutes of staring at the read receipt, Laurel fired off another text, her freezing fingers moving over the keyboard quickly as she turned around to head in the direction she had come from. _where r u?_

\--

Michaela was a mess when Laurel got to her apartment. The way Michaela stuttered when she was sobbing about her ring echoed her exact that word that night, and Laurel felt a shiver pass through her body, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the draft blowing through the open front door or from the memory of that night—the smell of burning flesh, so unlike anything she’d ever smelled before that it was beyond comparison, briefly invaded her senses.

“Focus,” Laurel said, more for her benefit than Michaela’s. “Where did you last see it?”

“If I remembered we wouldn’t _be_ in this situation,” Michaela said hysterically, crouching on her bedroom floor with her hands spread out over the contents of the bedside drawer she’d up-ended on the floor. “I can’t find it, but it was in this drawer, it was—”

“Slow down.” Laurel crouched by Michaela. “Tell me exactly what you did with it.”

“I _said_ I put it in this drawer—“ Michaela said, as if Laurel was too stupid to have registered her words.

“Before that.” Laurel swallowed, her mouth dry. “After I gave it back to you. Try to remember everything that happened.”

“You can be so patronizing sometimes," Michaela said, her cheeks still glistening with angry tears.

Laurel’s lips twisted into a smile that _could_ be read as patronizing, just to provoke a reaction.

Michaela huffed, but after a moment she said, “After I left you at the bar, I put it in my pocket.” She swept her index finger underneath her wet eyes. “And I kept slipping it on and off my finger, you know, I didn’t want to lose it. I was so scared I would lose it again, and I needed proof that it was still there…”

“Michaela.” Laurel reached a hand out to her shoulder. “Just breathe.”

Michaela swatted her hand away like an angry cat, closing her eyes. “Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t know why I bother with you.”

Laurel braced her hands on her thighs and rocked back on her heels. “What are you planning to do with it, anyway?”

Michaela ignored her. “It’s your fault I lost it.”

“My fault you lost it?” Laurel arched a brow. “If I recall, you’re the one who lost it. _Twice._ ”

“I swear to _God_ , Lauren.” Michaela’s burning gaze found Laurel as its target. “It’s none of your business, anyway.”

“All right!” Laurel threw her hands up and stood up. “Fine. I get it. I’ll leave. I was just trying to help.” She turned towards the door.

“By hiding the truth from me? So you would keep me quiet? I wouldn’t have _said_ anything.”

Laurel turned. “I didn’t know that.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that what you did was wrong.”

“I know. I know, Michaela, and I’m trying to make up for it.”

“Then help me find my ring, damn it!”

Laurel didn’t argue with the circular logic that lead her right back to the situation she was about to walk away from. She bit her lip, staring down at Michaela, her pink skirt spread around her as she kneeled on the floor. Sometimes she really did look like a princess, and Laurel had to admit she had a weakness for her when she looked up at her like that, so innocent-looking, though her eyes were accusing. So Laurel rolled her eyes but crouched by Michaela again, overturning every sheet of paper strewn on the ground, rifling through all the random objects she’s thrown into the drawer—from nighttime Advil to unopened packages of lipstick to mini bottles of Grey Goose.

Michaela’s apartment was immaculate, but it seemed to Laurel like maybe that was just the cover, that she was the type to sweep everything under the rug, beneath the bed, into the closet. Laurel turned to lift the bed skirt to check if she was right, but it appeared only to be her bedside drawer that was disorganized, as the floor beneath her bed was spotless—not even a conspicuous dust bunny to out Michaela as a closet hoarder, or worse, a slob. Next they sorted through her jewelry.

“I put it in my coat pocket, but I can’t… I can’t remember if I put it anywhere after or if I left it in my coat. Maybe I put the fake in the drawer.”

“I’ll check,” Laurel said, as Michaela continued to sift halfheartedly through her jewelry. She distractedly nodded.

Laurel stepped into her closet and turned on the light, and the sight of Michaela’s wedding dress made her whole body go still for a moment. Vera Wang, undoubtedly expensive, and undoubtedly—a waste. She couldn’t help but to feel the material, the friction of the tulle between her fingers.

She heard a rustle of silk behind her and turned to see Michaela, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. “What are you doing?”

Laurel shook her head, her hand dropping to her side. “I don’t know, Michaela. What are _you_ doing? If you’re not getting married to Aiden anymore, why does any of this matter?”

Michaela looked startled, then offended. “I—” She started, ready to fire off on the defensive, but her mouth hung open. She pressed her lips together. “Just help me find it. I need to give it back to Aiden so that we’re done. Completely done. And it won’t _feel_ done until I do that.”

Laurel nodded slowly. She didn’t ask for further explanation, silently helped Michaela look through her apartment until they found the ring—it sat cradled between two couch cushions, glinting when Laurel pulled it out. She simply held it out to Michaela, who stared at it like a woman possessed.

“It—It must have slipped out of my pocket.” Michaela’s forehead screwed up again. “Or maybe—off my hand." She slipped it onto her finger, twisting it around and around. “It’s too big now.”

“You know, you should really get a  _handle_ on that,” Laurel said, pausing for a beat as Michaela frowned.

Michaela held the couch cushion between them like it was a battering ram, pushing her towards the door. “You can leave now.”

Laurel crossed her arms, taking one step back but refusing to budge anymore against Michael'a weight. “Okay, but answer this first. How did it take you so long to notice?”

Micahela lowered the cushion and stepped back. “Honestly?”

“Honestly. No bullshit.” Laurel crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows, waiting.

Michaela faltered. She turned, placed the cushion back, smoothed a hand across it all before answering.“Honestly, I got so used to the fake one that it started to feel real. I guess kept wearing it because I was afraid of losing the real thing again.”

\--

_It’s gone._

_what’s gone?_ Laurel glanced at her phone surreptitiously under the desk. Even in classes she didn’t share with the Keating 5, she somehow couldn’t escape them—if it wasn’t Asher sending her the millionth stupid 90’s meme or Connor accidentally sexting her, it was Michaela, inevitably undergoing some crisis. She would not text Laurel under any other circumstance.

The response came back almost immediately. _The ring._

Laurel glanced at her professor, trying unsuccessfully to hide her smirk. She didn’t want to be quizzed, should she be caught, about why she was smirking about torts. There was definitely nothing smirk-worthy about torts. So she schooled her face into neutrality and quickly typed a response. _do_ _n’t tell me you lost it again._

Michaela didn’t answer, but the read receipt appended to the bottom of her text was proof she had read it. Texting with Michaela was like a game; the last one to reply lost, and Laurel often found herself on the losing end.

 She considered.  _y_ _ou know what they say, third time’s the charm._

_I didn’t lose it, Lauren._

And just when Laurel was about to reply that she still had no idea what Michaela was talking about, another message came.

_I threw it away._

\--

Laurel expected Michaela to be sobbing again when she answered the door, but instead, she was smiling, almost manic, showing all of her teeth. “I did it. I threw away the ring.”

“You—you what?” Laurel said as she slipped through the door, beginning to unbutton her jacket.

“It might have slipped,” Michaela said vaguely.

“I don’t understand.” Laurel took her coat off and draped it over her arm.

Michaela just grabbed her hand and lead her to her room, perching herself on the edge of her bed. “I refuse to give it back to Aiden, even if I did call off the wedding.”

“Well, yeah, I guess not if it’s…” Laurel surveyed the room slowly. “Where is it, exactly?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. It’s in a dumpster somewhere, and soon I guess it’ll be in a landfill.”

Laurel stared at Michaela, choking out a laugh. “You didn’t.”

“I did,” Michaela said proudly.

“I thought you were going to give it back to him. Or keep it.” Laurel frowned. “What was the plan again?”

“He gave it to me as a promise, and I can keep it if I want.”

“Or not.”

“The point is,” Michaela said, “is that he threw away our future, so _I_ can throw away the ring he gave me as a promise of that. It’s _symbolic,_ Laurel.”

Laurel didn’t miss the fact that when Michaela said her name, it was always with a purpose, and she wielded it like a weapon. When Michaela was angry, she was Lauren; Michaela only deigned to call Laurel by her real name when she was happy with her, or neutral at the very least. It was the easiest way to gauge where they stood when Laurel was unsure of where they were at most of the time. Their relationship was like navigating shifting sands, or maybe it was more like fighting the tide that draws you in, kicking and fighting and screaming, leaving you no choice but to surrender. Yeah, Laurel thought. It was a lot more like _that_ with Michaela. You had to surrender to her, because you had no choice in the matter anyway.

“I realize that,” Laurel said, finally. “I’m not stupid.”

Michaela tilted her chin slightly up, refusing to break their gaze. “I know.” 

And just like that they were at a standstill again, staring at each other and unsure of who should make the first move. Laurel, of course, was always the one to make the first move—she figured by now that was always how it was going to be.

Laurel moved across the room to sit by Michaela, intentionally leaving a space between them large enough to fit another person. Michaela raised her eyebrows ever-so-slightly.

There was something delicate between them, unspoken, and Laurel’s breath hitched. Michaela seemed to be holding her breath, too. Laurel wasn’t sure what to say—if there was even anything to say, at this point. All she could do was reach out and cover Michaela’s hand with her own. Michaela was twisting her hands in her lap and Laurel’s hand stilled her nervous fidgeting.

Laurel thought she might slap her away again, but to her surprise, Michaela upturned her right hand beneath Laurel’s, palm to palm, and Laurel responded by lacing their fingers together.

“You’re gonna survive this, Michaela,” Laurel said, her eyes trailing back up to meet Michaela’s.

Michaela smiled sardonically. “Don’t you think I know that by now? It’s not about the ring...” Her sentence trailed off, and she wrenched her hand from Laurel’s suddenly, so she could adjust the hem of her skirt, pulling it down and smoothing the wrinkles out across her thighs. It seemed like a distraction, because through it all, she was still scared to be vulnerable—Laurel could see it on her face, like she wanted to say something, but the words were caught in her throat, constricted by her own image of herself as indestructible. As if strength and vulnerability were polar opposites.

“What, then?” Laurel said.

“I don’t know if I can do this alone,” Michaela said, finally, her chin dipping close to her chest.

Laurel looked away. The wedding dress hung outside of the closet now, in a plastic Vera Wang garment bag hung by the door. It seemed like the dress was suffocating in there—like it was too large to be contained in that bag and it was bursting out. But, Laurel supposed, like every other brilliant part of the future that Michaela had imagined but that would never actualize, she had to let it go. Surrender to something greater than herself—to the inevitability of a chain of events spinning beyond her control.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Laurel said. 

“Small comfort,” Michaela said, her words barbed, but then her lips parted almost immediately after as if to say something, as if to apologize, and she looked at Laurel, pressing her lips together and forcing her lips up into a smile that looked more like a grimace, as if to say, _Don’t make me say it_.

Laurel tipped her head back. “Oh?” She stood, but leaned towards Michaela suggestively. “Should I go, then?”

Michaela’s eyes were firmly on her hands, twisted in her lap. “Don’t make me ask you to stay.” Her voice was quietly demanding.

Laurel’s lips curved into a wicked smile. “All you had to do was say ‘please.’”

\--

“I’m done making plans,” Michaela declared, finally.

“Oh, you mean you didn’t come to law school planning to get involved in a murder?” Laurel mumbled into her shoulder. “Not to mention a whole bunch of other illegal shit.” 

Michaela actually _giggled_ at that, and Laurel felt the vibration of it all the way down to Michaela’s stomach. Laurel found she liked the sound, though she didn’t want to think too much about what that meant. Laughter at least dissolved tension.

“You know,” Laurel said, not moving her mouth from where it was pressed to her shoulder, “you don’t have to talk about it.”

“Maybe I want to.”

Maybe it was the fact that they were not facing each other that made Michaela comfortable enough to be vulnerable, maybe it was the fact that Michaela pretty much _forced_ Laurel to be the big spoon (though Laurel hadn’t, couldn’t, didn’t want to object) if she _truly_ wanted to offer her some sort of comfort, maybe it was Laurel’s arm draped over Michaela’s ribs and their hands laced together. And maybe it had a little to do the mini bottles of Grey Goose they downed one after another, though they were too small to offer up anything more than a slight delirious buzz that set the atmosphere between them into a lightning crackle.

Michaela had insisted it didn’t mean anything, that they were curled up like this. It was just sharing warmth, skin to skin, as if she’d been submerged in icy waters and Laurel was trying to coax warmth back into her.

And her skin  _did_ feel cold beneath Laurel ’s hands.

It was survival.

“I know I’m going to survive,” Michaela said. “I thought for so long that I needed this, but you know… All that time that you had the ring made me realize I really didn’t need it. That I could stand on my own two feet. Actually…” She squeezed Laurel’s hand. “I feel stronger for it. I still kind of hate you, though.”

There was a long, drawn out silence which Laurel did not feel the need to puncture with words. She realized she didn’t need to say anything. Maybe just being there was enough. But then, fire and smoke invaded her mind as she raised her head to glance at the dress, watching over them accusingly from its vantage point.

“What are you planning to do with the dress? Should we burn it?”  Laurel said, marrying the two ideas.

Michaela twisted around to look at her, her eyes wide. “Oh. You’re _joking_.”

“Of course I am. You don’t just  _burn_ Vera Wang.”

Laughter bubbled out of Michaela’s lips again. “I don’t know. Return it. I was thinking…” She trailed off, then, tracing a pattern on the sheets with her free hand. “I was thinking I should maybe keep it. You know, for my next wedding. If it even still fits by then.”

“Careful,” Laurel said. “You don’t want to actually go _through_ with marrying a closet case next time.”

Michaela let out a burst of incredulous laughter. “Oh, please. As if I would make that mistake again.”

“You say that as if your gaydar is perfectly in tune, which…” Laurel turned her mouth from Michaela’s shoulder to whisper in her ear. “I’m sorry to be the first one to inform you of this, but it’s just not.”

Michaela shivered and turned to glare at her again, but it softened as her eyes trailed down to Laurel’s lips. Something flickered in her eyes for a brief moment, but she snuffed it out when she turned coldly away from Laurel. “You’re not the first.”

Laurel almost smirked—it might be dark in the room, but she didn’t miss the blush that crept onto Michaela’s cheeks. Maybe her gaydar was less out of tune than she gave her credit for.

\--

And for once, Michaela was okay with how things were. Maybe reality was more beautiful, and in fact preferable, to the image she had constructed in her mind of how things should be. Before, the image was more beautiful than the reality. Michaela held the image of her perfect life in her mind, worked towards it as if all it took was persistence for reality to converge with the image.

But she wasn’t a princess, and Aiden wasn’t a prince (at least, not _her_ prince), and there would be no happily, ever, after. Life would keep going on, even after the castle came crumbling down.

So maybe the image of her perfect life had become fractured, and at the end of the day the stories Michaela told herself turned out to be just that—stories. But for once, reality didn’t pale in comparison to those fictions. She felt freer, like she could breathe again,  like things would be okay, someday, in the far-off, distant future, when she would move away from the image of who she thought she should be: perfect, invulnerable, impenetrable.

That person she thought she was was not real, and never would be. Her faults were coming into sharper focus, and she could finally admit to them, even if only privately. Her sense of the boundary between right and wrong was dwindling. Her marriage had failed, had not even made it past the engagement. She had failed to notice that her fiance was not the perfect person she needed him to be, that he had his own life outsider of hers, his own history, his own struggle with his identity. And in Laurel's arms, her own seemed unstable now more than ever, something she generally avoided dwelling on. For now she just needed the comfort of knowing she was not alone in what was sometimes a cold and uncaring and impersonal world.

\--

Laurel did what she could, the only thing that she could—she held Michaela into the night, let her body, her presence, be enough, at least for the moment. Sometimes, being a body was enough, just enough to anchor each other down, or to keep the other afloat. Laurel was real, and she was here, and so maybe Michaela didn’t have to be alone after all, at least not for that night.

It wasn’t a promise—Laurel didn’t intend on making promises _or_ plans, especially not to Michaela—but it was a start.


End file.
